Several commenters have told me that I am rejecting the God who created me. The Bible tells us God formed and shaped each person like clay in his or her mother’s womb.
Which brings up a big question … if God forms people in the womb, why are there birth defects and still-born babies?
Now the word of the LORD came to me saying, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I have appointed you a prophet to the nations.” — Jeremiah 1:4-5
I will say to God: … “Your hands shaped me and made me. Will you now turn and destroy me? Remember that you molded me like clay. Will you now turn me to dust again? — Job 10:2, 8-9
At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, where she entered Zechariah’s home and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. In a loud voice she exclaimed: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. — Luke 1:39-44
My wife’s cousin and a close friend of mine have both recently had babies. My wife’s cousin went nearly full term before her daughter was still-born. My close friend gave birth to her daughter a year ago. She was born with severe Cerebral Palsy and recently died in a hospital after a long battle with an infection.
Both of these women are wonderful people and very faithful Christians. They have both been devastated by these tragedies. Why would God form their infant children as the Bible describes, only to allow one to die without ever taking a breath and the other to live a single year of pain and suffering?
Unfortunately this is the reality we all live in. Bad things happen to good people every day. Life is unjust and painful as often as it is filled with joy. Which is exactly why I find it so unwise to put faith in imaginary things. Praying for help from an invisible God does give people hope. But it is false hope. As ugly as the world can be at times, it is much better better to put your faith in real things. Lean on your family and friends in hard times, and celebrate with them in the good times.
A god did not form us in our mother’s womb. And there isn’t a personal deity that has a plan for our lives. My suggestion is to live fully, love those close to you, learn new things each day and always roll with the punches. But always remember to take time to enjoy the good things.
Tags: Babies, Bible, Birth Defects, Christian, Christianity, Death, Faith, Formed, God, Heaven, Jesus, Pregnancy, Pregnant, Still-Born, Womb
January 5, 2010 at 4:13 am |
I’m not sure but I very much doubt many believe that the christian god has much to do with the forming of children anymore. I would bet most think that deformities are punishment for something they did or a test of their faithfulness. They might say that the deformities are the work of the devil but that means that their god doesn’t have complete control as they claim.
I don’t see this as a means of getting people to question their views since they can hide behind so many different reasons for the deformities. Myself I believe that one day science will better understand how these happen and might even one day prevent them but that is a long ways off until more people accept that answers are possible if we look for them in the right places. To many americans are looking in the wrong places.
January 5, 2010 at 4:30 am |
John 9:2-3
“His disciples asked Him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’ ‘Neither this man nor his parents sinned,’ said Jesus, ‘but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.’
I know this seems like a small consolation, certainly for someone who doesn’t have faith, but for us believers, it is enough.
I did really enjoy reading your view upon this issue, very honest.
January 5, 2010 at 4:43 am |
My question is how does deformities and all show a perfects beings work? Unless deformities and blindness are actually the more perfect versions of man. If everyone felt as you do I very much doubt we would have the abilities to communicate as we do now.
By saying this is good enough you have decided to not try and find answers to these problems. Thanks for hiding from the problem and adding to the suffering of others.
January 5, 2010 at 6:31 am |
The work of God? Seriously? It gets deeper and deeper, doesn’t it? We are each born sinners, yet neither the man or the parent sinned, and the result is being born blind so that we may see God’s work?
In what way does this make ANY sense to ANY believer? What, exactly, do you think it means to behold the work of a god who created everything, yet left out the ability to see for the blind?
Are we to simply accept that blind people can live happy, fulfilled lives, therefore they are lucky to have been born at all?
I really cannot understand the logic.
January 5, 2010 at 9:34 am |
We ourselves do not establish the standards of what is right. Only the Creator of all reality can do that. We need to settle it, in our minds and hearts, whether we understand it or not, that whatever God does is, by definition, right.
Having settled this by faith, we are then free to seek for ways in which we can profit spiritually from the sufferings in life as well as the blessings.
With our full faith in God’s goodness and in Christ’s redemption, we can recognize that our present sufferings can be turned to His glory and our good.
But again, these words are lost, for those who don’t want to believe and who push God away.
Atheists express their rage against God although in their view He does not exist. –C. S. Lewis
This is all I have to say and wish you guys well.
January 5, 2010 at 9:58 am
C.S. Lewis was a very intelligent man, but his blanket atheist statement is far from true.
I can’t be angry at imaginary people. My Christian experience was a very good one with many friends and memories along the way. I just no longer believe in a god based in such flawed texts and theology.
I am not angry with the Christian version of God, only somewhat angry with myself for believing in something so absurd my entire life.
My goal is not to de-convert you. This blog is simply a place for religious discussion and your opinion is more than welcome.
January 5, 2010 at 10:59 am
You do realize that you have a much greater capacity to decide what is right then the God of the bible? If he loves to show his work through birth defects and diseases, he’s a pretty sick individual.
If you are to profit from these sufferings caused by God, you do so by the suffering of others. This is not a loving God, but a cruel and sadistic one.
It is true that even if I believed the Bible to be true I would reject God for has sadistic nature, but that doesn’t make him real.
January 5, 2010 at 11:22 am
The words are lost because, to those who truly suffered due to God’s neglect, those words are nothing but crocodile tears.
They are of no comfort to sufferers, and in fact, it can become a crisis of faith to reconcile God’s promises with the suffering that one goes through in life.
That crisis of faith only grows when Christians, in full faith that they are doing God’s work, “help” by throwing inconsiderate statements, accusations and chides about not having enough faith, about cautionary tales against abandoning God or falling to Satan.
Instead of REAL help and comfort.
January 5, 2010 at 12:04 pm
Andy–
I don’t think many Christians take the time to think about this. They are too quick with the “God’s ways are not our ways” response. They are correct, this primitive God’s ways are certainly not my ways.
Why would anyone worship a deity with such a sadistic and malevolent nature? Jesus can’t erase the stories of Yahweh and our world does not display the work of a loving or involved god.
I understand worshiping God out of fear of hell, but Christians are taught to love God because he is just, merciful and loving. This Judea-Christian god is far from a model for justice or mercy. Unless requiring human sacrifices and blood to earn forgiveness is an act of mercy.
January 5, 2010 at 2:25 pm
Even if Jesus did erase the atrocities of Yahweh there is still a hell, and many good people get sent to it for the crime of disbelief, or belief in another deity. If Hitler had become “saved” on his deathbed he would go to heaven, but when an Atheist who devotes his life to serving other people dies he goes to hell.
January 5, 2010 at 2:54 pm
Andy, you say, “If Hitler had become “saved” on his deathbed he would go to heaven, but when an Atheist who devotes his life to serving other people dies he goes to hell.”
I honestly don’t think there is much danger of that. However, if Hitler’s heart was changed prior to his death, then possibly. And if the Atheist who devotes his life to serving other people, perhaps it depends on his motivation. But in the end, it’s not my place to decide who goes where.
What is more important is to not treat heaven and hell as if they are something that we enter into when we die. Jesus spoke about heaven as “the kingdom of heaven is near…in fact it has already come.” and when he spoke of “hell” he used the word “gehenna”. Gehenna was a trash heap outside of the city where they burned their trash. It was a place “of gnashing of teeth” because the dogs fought for scraps of food. It was a place where the fire never ends because they constantly kept a fire lit to burn the trash. Heaven and hell were seen as present realities that we enter into.
And when we look at what Jesus said would cause us to enter into Gehenna (and what puts people into the Lake of Fire in Revelation), it is never “you had the wrong theology…you picked the wrong religion…you guessed wrong about which rules to follow…you didn’t follow the rules properly.” What it boils down to is how we love one another. Jesus sums up religion in one phrase, “Love God, Love each other.” We do the work of working out what that looks like in our day and age.
Love,
-Andrew
January 5, 2010 at 3:43 pm
Sorry Andrew but the Bible also describes hell as “the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown. They will be tormented day and night for ever and ever” in Revelations, not exactly Gehenna.
Furthermore there are rules about who you worship to avoid hell/Gehanna. John 3:36, Ephesians 2:8, and Acts 16:31 all say you must believe to be accepted into heaven. Even John 3:18 (Just two verses after everyones favorite) states that those who do not believe shall be condemned.
January 5, 2010 at 5:06 pm
“Even if Jesus did erase the atrocities of Yahweh there is still a hell, and many good people get sent to it for the crime of disbelief, or belief in another deity. If Hitler had become “saved” on his deathbed he would go to heaven, but when an Atheist who devotes his life to serving other people dies he goes to hell.” (Andy)
Why are you so confident that this is how it really works? Paul says (in the most authentic passage in the Bible) Romans 2:6-11 that God “will render to every man according to his deeds: to them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, eternal life: But unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile; But glory, honour, and peace, to every man that worketh good, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile: For there is no respect of persons with God.”
That doesn’t sound like Hitler has a chance at all, deathbed ‘conversion’ or not.
January 5, 2010 at 9:43 am |
lostbutf0und-
I can somewhat understand your logic in certain circumstances. But babies born with severe deformities, genetic disorders or still-born certainly don’t apply.
A blind person has the opportunity to overcome their disability and achieve great things. Their strength and perseverance inspires people which you biblically attribute to God being “displayed in their life.”
A still-born infant that doesn’t even have the opportunity to breath a single breath, does not display a divine purpose to bring an invisible god glory.
January 5, 2010 at 5:02 pm |
If Jesus really said “but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life” then he meant it in the sense that the god of this world had done it to torment the man but that He Himself as the Better God would use it to make His works known.
January 5, 2010 at 12:37 pm |
Apparently, God gets first crack at it, but lets Satan “Job around” in the womb once He’s finished.
Ta-daaa!
January 5, 2010 at 1:43 pm |
You ask a really good question. I think (maybe I infer too much) that your question goes beyond the simple situation of birth defects. But I’ll talk about that a bit first. This idea that God forms us in the womb is a somewhat poetic way that the culture the Bible was written in gives God credit for everything that happens. However, in the creation story God creates the earth and then the land produces vegetation. God does not produce the vegetation, S/He made the land and then turned the land loose to produce. In the same way humanity was created and then told “be fruitful and multiply.” God creates and then tells creation to keep on creating. So literally God does not “form us in the womb” but God as the Creator does make it possible for us to form in the womb.
So, why does God allow birth defects? Why does God allow still birth? Why did God allow my babies to die? Why does God allow my mother to be dying of cancer? That’s a good enough question. And fair to ask. And I don’t have the answer. God intervened miraculously in the lives of people in the Bible. Lazarus was raised from the dead. So why doesn’t that happen now? But the thing we don’t think about is the fact that knowing why wouldn’t make it any easier to deal with. And Lazarus didn’t stay resurrected. He got sick again. He eventually died. So what now? Have we missed a hundred miracles that have happened because we expected them to be permanent?
What it comes down to for me is less “why?” anymore. It’s more of a “what now?”. You are right in the end of your post. Good things happen, and bad things happen. What are you going to cling to? I agree wholeheartedly that we should enjoy the good things, roll with the punches, live, learn, and love.
Jesus said the Kingdom of Heaven is here. Not “the kingdom of Heaven is over there…now follow these rules and you’ll get there.” Whenever we live well, enjoy good, make the world a better place, we are doing our part to bring heaven to Earth. When we work to reduce birth defects, or to cure AIDS and Cancer, or even to be with those who are hurting from those things…we are bringing heaven to Earth and working against hell. Whether we are doing it in the name of Christ or not, we are working to bring heaven to earth.
I have many reasons that I believe in God. None on their own constitutes absolute proof. I don’t believe that absolute proof is possible for anything. Von Neumann’s Catastrophe of the Infinite Regress drives that point home nicely. But one of the reasons I believe (not the only, nor the main reason), is that I choose to believe that there is a reason for suffering. Yes, it makes me angry that I don’t know the reason. No, it is not satisfying to say “God’s ways are not our ways.” That feels trite and cliche…especially in the middle of great suffering. But neither is it comforting, nor satisfying, nor does it in any way seem true that there is no meaning behind suffering. I can’t bury my head in the sand. I can’t whistle past the graveyard. I can’t say, “Well, life is crappy…bad things happen. I’ll enjoy the good times the best I can and just try to deal with it.”
All that said (and I know it’s a lot. Sorry, I get a bit long winded sometimes), I appreciate your working for life. Live, Learn, Love, and enjoy good things. Whatever you do that reduces suffering is good for all of us.
Love,
-Andrew
January 5, 2010 at 4:59 pm |
Exodus 4:11 “And the YHWH said unto him [Moses], Who hath made man’s mouth? or who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? have not I the YHWH?”
The OT god seems proud of making people blind. Indeed, is he not the “god of this world [who] hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them”? ( 2 Cor 4:4 )
January 6, 2010 at 9:39 am |
Best part about it is that it’s still OUR fault that we were blinded. In effect, we take responsibility for God’s Will, even if we didn’t remotely ask for it. >_>
January 6, 2010 at 1:41 pm |
In Calvinism that’s what they say.
January 6, 2010 at 2:46 pm |
Are there other instances of birth defects in the Bible? I think it’s quite likely that any child born visibly deformed simply wouldn’t have been nursed.
January 7, 2010 at 11:16 am |
Considering the Old Testament law commanding the murder of disobedient children, infants born with deformities likely didn’t have a chance.
A child born with a birth defect 2,000-3,000 years ago would have been viewed as punishment from God. Ancient people had no other way to explain it.
It was perfectly consistent with Yahweh’s character to wrathfully smite a child to punish the parents. Most Christians today would not blame God. They instead blame the “broken world” or Satan. Whichever suits their flavor of Christianity.
January 7, 2010 at 10:46 am |
Another thing to keep in mind is that if God is indeed in charge of what goes on inside the womb, he must be the one responsible for all the babies that do not survive pregnancy. Something like 50% of all human pregnancies end in miscarriage or stillbirth. Of all the doctors performing abortions, none can claim to kill half the babies ever conceived.
January 7, 2010 at 12:05 pm |
Who really takes it as literal that God personally forms people in the womb? Any lurkers out there?
January 8, 2010 at 5:39 pm |
Existing sin nature and the devil.
January 8, 2010 at 11:36 pm |
Birth defects are a result of a rib woman who ate a piece of fruit in a garden because a snake told her to and/or because of an invisible demon named Satan? Sounds like a logical explanation.
June 18, 2010 at 3:19 pm |
lol.
January 9, 2010 at 11:32 am |
Birth defects also imply that people are being punished by default for the sins of their ancestors, and that the newborn are also condemned of the original sin.
Both of these claims are part of the many contradicting passages in the Bible (and yes, the context does imply that BOTH yes and no are true).
Note: Christianity has no Past Life traditions, so no, unlike Hinduism or the branch of Buddhism with more than one Bodhisattva, you can’t blame birth defects on bad karma. No free lunch for you, I fear. <_<
January 13, 2010 at 3:40 am |
[...] want to subscribe to the RSS feed for updates on this topic.Powered by WP Greet BoxAs a dad-to-be, THIS POST concerning birth defects affected me more than I though it would. Before reading it, remember that [...]
February 19, 2010 at 9:20 pm |
If God creates a new soul just before inserting it into the freshly fertilized zygote, why does he create it stained with Original Sin?
June 24, 2010 at 10:09 am |
If god loves us and is all understanding no person would be born with deformities,it has ruined my life, every one deserves a level playing field
life is hard enough as it is, i have now come to the conclusion that God does and never did or has existed, if so how can he be so cruel, does it not say in the bible he made us in his image, there is a spirit world but no God
end of story.
June 24, 2010 at 10:17 am |
Quote
lostbutf0und Says:
January 5, 2010 at 9:34 am | Reply
We ourselves do not establish the standards of what is right. Only the Creator of all reality can do that. We need to settle it, in our minds and hearts, whether we understand it or not, that whatever God does is, by definition, right.
so what deformity do you have???????? would you then think it is right
i think not.
June 24, 2010 at 10:18 am |
This thread is old. (Still, quite relevant. >_>)